uly 24, 1870, Germans an also ask SHBURNE Mr. E. B. Washburne to the Duke de Gramont. SIR: I am requested by the chargé d'affaires of Saxony, near the court of his Majesty the Emperor of the French, to take the subjects of Saxony in France under the protection of this legation. Having received the assent of my Government to take the subjects of North Germany under the protection of this legation, I have assumed that it would give the same protection to the subjects of Saxony, provided it should meet with the approval of the government of his Majesty the Emperor. I will thank you to communicate to me at an early moment the action of his Majesty's government in this regard. I take the present opportunity to renew, &c., His Excellency the DUKE DE GRAMONT, E. B. WASHBURNE. Mr. H. Desprez to Mr. E. B. Washburne. [Translation.] ATES, ugust 11. correspond Saxony s follows: au, charge PARIS, July 21, 1870. SIR: To respond to your letter which you have done me the honor to write to me under date of yesterday, I hasten to inform you that the government of the Emperor gives its entire assent to your assuming, during the war, the protection of Saxon citizens in France. Receive the assurance of the high consideration, &c., &c., &c. Mr. WASHBURNE, Minister of the United States, Paris. H. DESPREZ. No. 235.] No. 51. Mr. E. B. Washburne to Mr. Fish. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Paris, July 26, 1870. (Received Aug. 11.) I have the honor to inclose a copy of the correspondence bearing upon the protection afforded by the Government of the United States to the subjects of Hesse Grand-Ducale, resident in France, who, owing to the alliance formed between the government of the North German Confederation and that of Hesse, have become the enemies of France in the war declared on the 19th of the present month. The correspondence embraces, 1st. A translation of a letter from Count d'Euzenberg, minister resident of Hesse Grand-Ducale at Paris. 2d. A copy of a letter addressed by myself to the Duke de Gramont asking the assent of the government of the Emperor for such protection, and 3d. The translation of a letter from the Duke de Gramont giving the assent desired. E. B. WASHBURNE. [Translation.] LEGATION OF HESSE GRAND-DUCALE, Mr. MINISTER: My government having informed me of the fact of the declaration of war by France against the North German Confederation, of the date of July 19 current, the alliance under the military convention concluded between the two gov ernments of Hesse and the North German Confederation still exists. In consequence I am instructed to address your excellency without delay, in order to inform you of the desire of my government that you will take all the subjects of Hesse residing in Paris and in France, as well as the archives of the legation, under the protection of the United States. I hasten to obey this order, and I beg your excellency to be assured of the high es timate which my government attaches to this protection; and already in advance, and in my own name, I pray your excellency to be pleased to accept my heartfelt thanks as a testimony of courtesy and international good will, and I take this occasion to renew the assurances of the high consideration with which I have the honor to be, Mr. Minister, your excellency's humble and devoted servant. His Excellency E. B. WASHBURNE, EUZENBERG, Minister Resident. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. Mr. E. B. Washburne to the Duke de Gramont. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: The Grand Duke of Hesse Grand-Ducale has directed Count d'Euzenberg, his minister resident near the court of his Majesty, the Emperor of the French to address himself to me, with the request that the Government of the United States should permit all subjects of Hesse finding themselves in Paris or in France, together with the archives of Hesse Grand-Ducale, to be placed under the protection of the United States. I have to state to your excellency that I shall feel authorized to assume such protection, with the assent of the governinent of his Majesty the Emperor. I would be pleased, therefore, if you would advise me, at your earliest convenience, if such assent will be given. I take the present opportunity, &c., &c., His Excellency the DUKE DE GRAMONT, Minister of Foreign Affairs. E. B. WASHBURNE. The Duke de Gramont to Mr. E. B. Washburne. [Translation.] PARIS, July 25, 1870. I hasten to inform you, in answer to the letter you did me the honor to write to me on the 23d of this month, that the government of the Emperor gives its entire assent in order that you may assume, during the war, the protection of the subjects of Hesse Grand-Ducale, residing in France. Receive the assurances of the high consideration with which I have the honor to be, sir, your very humble servant, Mr. WASHBURNE, Minister of the United States, Paris. GRAMONT. No. 52. Mr. E. B. Washburne to Mr. Fish. No. 238.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Referring to my dispatch of the 22d instant, numbered 231, and to the reference therein to the question of the departure of the subjects of LE, 5, 1870. laration July 19, wo gov. in order jects of , under Ligh es ce, and thanks to re be, Mr. dent. -70. . his Aress perthe ates. stee sed, 1 be the North German Confederation from French territory, I now have the honor to send you the continuation of the correspondence on that subject. It consists of First. The reply of the Duke de Gramont to my letter of the 21st instant, marked No. 1, and Second. My rejoinder to his excellency's letter, dated the 25th instant, and marked No. 2. It is difficult for me to determine the precise nature and extent of the functions devolving upon me in virtue of the protection of the subjects of the North German Confederation, which I have assumed by your direction and with the assent of the French government. I cannot find that any particular rule has been laid down to govern under such circumstances, and I would be thankful if you could make any suggestions in that regard. But it must be presumed that I am to extend my good offices in every proper manner to such of the North German subjects as may call upon me for advice or protection, but guarding myself carefully against any act which might be construed as inconsistent with the neutral position I occupy. In regard, however, to the doctrines submitted by the Duke de Gramont, in his letter to me of the 23d instant, touching the departure of North German subjects from French territory, I considered them as differing so widely from the well-established principles of public law, at least as understood and acted upon in our own country, that I could not give them even an implied assent. Hence my letter to the Duke de Gramont of the 25th instant, to which I have already made reference herein, and which I trust may meet with your approbation. E. B. WASHBURNE. No. 1. The Duke de Gramont to Mr. E. B. Washburne, [Translation.] PARIS, July 23, 1870. Mr. MINISTER: You have done me the honor to inform me that a large number of persons belonging to the North German Confederation have asked your good offices to enable them to return to their country, passing through Belgian territory, and you are good enough to ask me at the same time if the passports given or signed by you would constitute sufficient evidence to assure security in the journey to these persons. As you have seen, Mr. Minister, by the notice inserted in the Journal Officiel of the 20th of this month, the government of the Emperor has decided that German citizens will be at liberty to continue their residence in France, and that they will enjoy the protection of our laws as before the war, as long as their conduct does not give any legitimate cause of complaint. Nothing is altered in the design of his Majesty in this regard. In regard to that which now concerns the North Germans who desire to leave the territory of the empire, in order to return into their own country, the government of the Emperor is disposed to accede to the desires of those individuals who are past the age of active military service, reserving the right to examine each particular case as it is presented. Regarding the national confederates who do not find themselves in this situation, and who would like to leave France to respond to the summons of their government which calls them lawfully to return to bear arms against us, the government of the Emperor will not allow their departure. In adopting this line of conduct we have the desire to reconcile, in an equitable degree, the considerations due to respectable private interests with the legitimate exigencies of a state of war. You will please to observe, sir, that the confederate Prussians, whose departure from our territory we prevent for the moment, can with difficulty invoke in their favor the general principles of the law of nations, or the doctrine of the text-writers on this subject. In fact, the German subjects, whom the decision which I have the honor to inform you of concerns, cannot legally be considered as simply private individuals, nor be assimilated to merchants; they are incontestibly persons bound to military service as soldiers of the activa armu depart from his territory subjects of the enemy, who, from the day of their return to their own country, will be enrolled in the ranks to take part in the hostilities. I will add, in conclusion, that except the obstacle put in the way of their departure from France, the German citizens in question will enjoy the most complete liberty to attend to their business, to carry on their commerce, their industries, or their professions; in other words they will be precisely on the same footing as those of their compatriots mentioned in the official note of the 20th of this month. Accept the assurances of the high consideration with which I have the honor to be, sir, your very humble and obedient servant, Mr. WASHBURNE, Minister of the United States. GRAMONT. No. 2. Mr. E. B. Washburne to the Duke de Gramont. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your excellency's communication of the 23d, in reply to mine of the 21st, asking information in behalf of North German confederate subjects desiring to quit French territory. Your excellency's communication seems to assume the probability that more or less of these applicants are desirous of quitting France to answer to the summons of their own governmont to bear arms against France, under the provisions of the laws of the North German confederation. Without undertaking to contest the exactness of this assumption, or without undertaking to inform your excellency whether any or what portion of these applicants are to be found outside of the present limits of liability to bear arms in the ranks of the confederation in case of their return to North Germany, matters upon which I have not particularly informed myself, you will allow me to remark, in loyal fulfillment of the function that has been confided to me in this regard, that I was not prepared to learn that the exception now proposed to be made by the government of his Majesty to the disadvantage of a portion, perhaps the largest portion, of the applicants would be insisted on, viz., that a liability to perform military service in the home army constitutes a sufficient reason for the refusal of the ordinary privilege of quitting foreign belligerent territory, on the outbreak of a war between that foreign government and the home nation. If the exception stated by your excellency is to constitute a settled principle of international comity, for I at once concede that there is no question of absolute right, but only of comity or social civilization, involved in the decision in the case of these applicants, then I beg leave to suggest that the exception becomes the rule, and that the privilege of returning to one's own country at the outbreak of a war becomes a mere nullity; since, of what male subject, of whatever age or of whatever condition of life, may it not be affirmed that at some time or under some circumstances he may be compelled to join the ranks of his country's armies in her defense; say in some sudden or extreme emergency? And is a distinction to be made between those countries which limit the conscription of their soldiers to a very restricted section of their population, and those governments which, like Prussia, the United States, and perhaps Switzerland, being much the larger proportion of their citizens under the reach of the law of military service? Will your excellency allow me respectfully to suggest that in the limited examination which I have been able to give to this subject, I find the line of exception now suggested to his Majesty's government to the general concession usually made in favor of foreign subjects wishing to quit belligerent territory an entirely new one. Even in feudal times, when the liability to do military duty to the sovereign lord or king was held in much greater strictness than at the present day, I do not find that the point was insisted upon of the returning liege being liable to become a hostile soldier. Certainly, under my own Government, from which perhaps I borrow my prepossessions, the idea of any such distinction seems to have been long since discarded. For as early as 1798, and when hostilities between the United States and France seemed imminent, probably I may say in reference to the departure of French subjects from United States territory, my own Government, by formal statute, declared that subjects of the hostile nation, who might wish to quit the United States on the outbreak of future hostilities, should be allowed "such reasonable time as may be consistent with the public safety, and according to the dictates of humanity and national hospitality," and "for the recovery, disposal, and removal of their goods and effects, and for their departure." [Laws of the United States, vol. 1, page 577.] Thus your excellency will observe that the privilege is granted in the most unrestricted terms, without allusion to a liability to render military aid to an enemy. I need not add that the same principle is incorpo rated into various subsisting treaties of the United States, and that the highest American authority on public law, Chancellor Kent, considers the principle to have become an established formula of modern public law. This learned publicist, I may perhaps be permitted to add, quotes various continental publicists, including Emerigon and Vattel, as upholding and ratifying the same doctrine. [Kent's Commentaries, vol. 1, pages 56-59.] I trust that these suggestions of a liberal construction of the rights of departing belligerents will not be deemed inappropriate or untimely on my part, since your excellency does not apprise me that any public notice of the qualified restraints foreshadowed in your communication have yet been definitely made public, and since from that liberal concession in favor of belligerent residents who do not choose to depart, which his Majesty's government has published, and to which your excellency has alluded, I deduce an anxious desire on the part of that government to conform as much as possible to the mildest interpretation of the hardships of the laws of war. It only remains for me to say that if his Majesty's government has definitely decided the question of the privilege of departing subjects of the North German Confederation, in the limited sense which your excellency's communication seems to imply, it would relieve me of trouble in the way of answering personal applications, if the French government should deem it proper to make a public announcement of its determination upon that point, or to advise me by a personal communication. I should also be glad to be informed if my own intervention or agency can be of any avail in enabling his Majesty's officials to judge of the fitness of granting the departure of those particular applicants who may happen to be without the limits of the age of military service in the North German Confederation army, and as to which you intimate that the French government reserves to itself the right of judging each case as it shall arise. I take the present occasion, &c., &c., &c. His Excellency the DUKE DE GRAMONT, &c., &c. E. B. WASHBURNE. No. 239.] No. 53. Mr. E. B. Washburne to Mr. Fish. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Paris, July 29, 1870. (Received August 11.) The French government having notified this legation that the Emperor had decided that the consular agents of the North German Confederation in France must cease to exercise their official functions, and it having advised me that it had instructed the prefects of the different departments that the interests of the subjects of the confederation, who should continue to reside in France, were, during the war, confided to the consular agents of the United States, I have thought proper to issue a circular to our consular agents, a copy of which I have the honor to inclose. It is issued as an answer to many inquiries on this subject, addressed to me by our consuls. E. B. WASHBURNE. [Circular.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: The legation of the United States in France, acting under the authority of the State Department, and with the assent of the French government, has taken under its protection all subjects of the North German Confederation residing in French territory. The States of Saxony, Hesse Grand-Ducale, and Saxe-Coberg-Gotha, are included. The government of his Majesty the Emperor, in notifying to this legation that the Emperor had decided that the consular agents of the North German Confederation in France must cease to exercise their functions, added it had informed the prefects of the different departments that the interests of the subiects of the confederation, who should |